Scottish Press on the Coup in Chile
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The Scotsman and the coup in Chile Our presence in Scotland can be explained by the following story reported in The Scotsman of the 12th September, 1973 and by a string of other British newspapers. ALLENDE SUICIDE REPORT AFTER MILITARY COUP "Tanks blasted the presidential palace after air forces jets attacked the building a dozen times with rockets. Dr Allende, supported by members of his presidential guard and civilian police, held out for more than two hours against heavy fire... Thousands of vehicles were marching on the city from the north a few hours after sporadic resistance by armed supporters of Dr Allende had been crushed" The Scotsman also reported the bombardment of Allende's home and his bodyguards mounting resistance here. "EXIT ALLENDE" The Scotsman editorial of Wednesday 12th September. "Just about midway during his six-year term of office, President Allende has been deposed by Chile's armed forces. In almost any other country Latin American country, without the constitution and democratic traditions of Chile (to which he paid scant attention) military intervention would have occurred much sooner. Indeed the generals first of all tried to avoid direct military action against the president by agreeing to co-operate in his government, after its effort to drive Chile too far and too fast along a rough Marxist road had produced economic chaos and the growth of violence forces on both Left and Right. Even as recently as the end of June, the military leaders intervened to stop an attempted coup by some units against the President. The military leaders can scarcely be accused of acting precipitately, although they have prevented Dr Allende from revealing his latest plan - perhaps including a plebiscite to decide on his continuance in office. It was rather late in the day for Dr Allende to present himself as the reconciler of his dangerously divided nation; for he had insisted (egged on by his extremist supporters) that socialist measures should take priority over the general consensus in Chile. A Marxist President, having been (unusually, and on a minority vote) elected, has a duty to pay attention to the wishes of the electorate. Dr Allende did not, and even those who deplore the existence of the middle class, should expect it to resist the wholesale undermining of its economic position - "divide and rule" may be a sound maxim for a country's conquerors, but a policy of "rule and divide" inevitably and rightly has led to Dr Allende's removals. A coup is unfortunate, but a civil war, which was looming, would have been worse. The social divisions which were opened up by Dr Allende will take a long time to heal." My critical reactions about the above Scotsman report What happens when a United States' government does not like a Latin American president? They just do their best to remove him. What happens when a Latin American President works hard on behalf of the underprivileged? The bourgeoisie tries its best to destabilise him until its government is removed. The social class division in Chile was not a creation of Dr Salvador Allende. The social division always existed as a part Chilean society and it was a political design of the ruling class which allowed our country, with its vast natural resources, to privilege a few well known families and permit American multi-national companies to exploit Chilean natural resources to the advantage of their shareholders in the United States. Allende was elected in 1970 as president of Chile with an express mandate from its people: to reverse this situation. Allende was a constitutionalist by tradition who tried his best to use the constitution to create a more democratic society. In the 1970s Chile was far from being a democratic one. Chilean history shows that the bourgeoisie always used the apparatus of the state to their advantages. Undeniably, many errors were committed in the area of the economy by the Allende ‘s government, however, any British historians will have evidences to suggest that this economic chaos was also the result of dirty work on the part the bourgeoisie and the US government, to which the Chilean economy was closely linked. The growth of violence among the right-wing people resulted from their desperation in seeing that, by 1973, President Allende was gaining more and more support, despite all the difficulties. Dr Allende had been elected in 1973 with 36.3% of the electorate and by 1973 his support was close to 43.9%, which might be thought to suggest an opposition of 56.1%. However, part of this latter percentage may include people who were undecided whether to vote for the Allende’s caolition UP or the opposition. Victor Jara, murdered by the Junta, wrote a famous song about these people. It was called "Ni chicha ni limoná" - roughly, neither one thing nor the other. What is sad is the undeniable fact that, in the plebiscite of 1988, 43% of Chileans voted for the Pinochet regime. That is to say, almost half the population unashamedly supported the Pinochet regime and its bloody actions. Since The Scotsman highlighted the fact that Allende had been elected in 1970 with a minority vote, we should note that, in 1958, the right-wing candidate Jorge Alessandri won the presidential election with 31.6% against 28.95% obtained by Salvador Allende. Alessandri won by a very narrow margin of around 33.000 votes. A priest by the name of Antonio Zamorano ("el cura de Catapilco") took 41.000 votes. In 1964 Eduardo Frei Montalva, a Christian Democrat, not only beat Allende with the help of the CIA but his government received a lot of "economic aid" from the United State through the Alliance for Progress - estimated at around US$720 million between 1961 and 1970. This was the largest amount, on a per capita basis, given to any Latin American nation*. The Allende government, on the other hand, did not receive economic aid from the US. Most Chileans never accepted a political class which held more than three quarters of the population under economic and social submission. By the late 1960s, this was about to change because there was a strong desire among the people for a different political class, able to work hard in pursuit of justice for the underprivileged. It was inevitable that deep economic changes, to give the poor a chance, were seen as almost the equivalent of a declaration of war by the bourgeoisie and the U.S. As soon as Allende was elected President, a war against him and his government was initiated by these forces. The fist important act of violence by the bourgeoisie was the assassination, in 1970, of the Chilean Army General; Rene Schneider because he refused to cooperate in the overthrow of President Allende's elected government. How wrong was the Scotsman to suggest that in the Chile of Allende a Civil war was about to take place. Chile of the 1970s was not the Spain of the 1930s. There was only one group of people who had the weapons to initiate a massacre in great scale in the Chile of Allende and this group was the Armed Forces who used everything in their power to kill thousands of lefties in atrocious circumstances during and after the coup. Pinochet the "saviour of Chile" ended up as an infamous dictator heavily committed to carry out the worse abuse of human rights in the history of Chile. Pinochet while in power accumulate, without the knowledge of his supporters, and in American banks, an incredible fortune termed in millions of dollars. *(A History of Chile 1808-1994, Simon Collier, William F. Sater, Cambridge Latin American Studies, Cambridge University press, 1996,p.310) US KNEW OF CHILEAN COUP IN ADVANCE The Scotsman, September 13th, 1973. "…..but a US spokesman stressed that the Administration who often in the past made clear their dislike of President Salvador Allende, were not involved in the coup, either in support of or against the Chilean Government…The administration sources indicated that members of the military Junta, who seized power on Tuesday, have been in touch with official or unofficial American representatives before the coup in which Dr Allende died" My critical comments about the above Scotsman report We all know by now that the US was involved in the coup and we know that the new rulers of Chile were already knocking at the door of the Nixon administration to get the all-clear. Nixon and Kissinger backed Pinochet. AFTER ALLENDE The Scotsman editorial of Wednesday 14th September 1973 "The overthrow of Dr Allende has aroused great and perfectly understandable indignation in certain quarters, such as the Soviet Union and Cuba, where the road to, and the maintenance of, socialism did not depend upon the ballot box". My critical comments about the above Scotsman report The Scotsman began its editorial by using the coup, a terrible tragedy for the Chilean people, to attack the Soviet Union and Cuba. In the development of the article The Scotsman displayed a venomous desire to use the Pinochet coup to attack not only these countries but also President Allende, Che Guevara, communism, etc. and to condemn with disdain the whole Chilean proletariat for daring to elect a Marxist as President. The coup is portrayed as a consequence of Chileans daring to elect a socialist president open to the communist world of the time. What we know is that, immediately after the coup, the whole world, including Scotland, was to condemn the coup and the horror brought upon the people by the evil Junta and its chief, General Pinochet.